


Cancelling the Apocalypse

by SectoBoss



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: End of the World, Gen, Helicopters, Reunions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-03 01:25:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4081177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SectoBoss/pseuds/SectoBoss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven years after the famous Copenhagen Expedition, the known world teeters on the brink of collapse. Stuck back on the family farm, Reynir Árnason believes his adventuring days are over – until a figure from his past shows up with mad plan to save the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cancelling the Apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

> A stray thought about how the crew might react to the sight of a flying machine snowballed into this. Make of that what you will. And yes, the title is a Pacific Rim reference.

Early one morning in the mid-spring of 97, a year that many people in the Known World thought might be the last, Reynir Árnason sat at the breakfast table at the family farm and read about the end of the world in the weekly newspaper. He shivered slightly and huddled closer into his jacket as he did so – the mercury had barely risen above freezing temperatures all year, and his parents had turned off the farmhouse’s heating to save what little money they had left. 

Their weekly edition of the _Morgunblaðið_ was brought up from Reykjavik on the carriage every Tuesday. Iceland’s oldest newspaper liked to boast that not war nor plague nor famine had stopped it from printing, although long-gone were the days when it could bring out new copy each morning like its name claimed. Reynir still wasn’t sure why his parents forked out for the weekly paper when they barely had enough money to heat their own house. Stubborn pride, he guessed. 

The front page was the mix between desperate optimism and gloomy reality that had become almost normal the past couple of years:

**_ Eruptions Ending? _ ** _  
_

_Speaking outside the University of Iceland’s Geology Department today, a spokesperson for the Icelandic Geological Survey said that experts are “90% sure” that the volcanic eruptions in Yellowstone have finally ceased. “We have seen a consistent decrease in the amount of ash, particulates and aerosols in the upper atmosphere over the past six months,” the spokesperson claimed. “We believe this to be consistent with the cessation of the main eruption event. However, it is possible that minor volcanic activity will continue in the caldera for many months afterwards.” When asked if the worst was over, the spokesperson declined to comment._

_The Yellowstone volcano, which is located in the Silent World on the old continent of North America, is believed to have started erupting in the early winter of Year 94. Sporadic eruptions over the following three-year period, including a theorised ‘mega-eruption’ in the summer of 95, are believed to be responsible for the severe winters and cold summers the Known World has suffered for the past three years…_

The eruptions may have ended, Reynir thought gloomily, but it was probably too late anyway. For three years now the world had been buried every winter beneath a smothering layer of ashy grey snow. The cold, dark summers that followed had offered barely any respite at all. Their own farm had lost thirty sheep since the start of this half-hearted spring alone to cold and starvation, and that made them the lucky ones. 

The news on the rest of the pages told the twin tales of famine and Illness. As the known world collapsed its enemies – one ancient, one new – were circling like wolves. The story of humanity’s grim struggle for survival was reported in half-page articles dotted with advertisements for crossbows and tinned food:

 

_The Coastal Quarantine Zone has been extended to 500 metres by order of the Althing, effective immediately. Non-immune persons are forbidden from travelling across this zone unless the circumstances are exceptional…  
_

_Bornholm has seen over forty new cases of the Illness since the start of the month. Fleet-Admiral Olsen, commander of the Royal Danish Navy, today announced the evacuation of the town of Hasle…  
_

_In a shocking announcement, potato and wheat were declared “functionally extinct” by the Icelandic Environment Agency on Wednesday following last year’s disastrous winter. Iceland and Norway are now bracing themselves for the worst harvest on record as stockpiles of grain run dangerously low…  
_

_Councillor Torbjörn Västerström defended the unilateral introduction of rationing in Sweden before the Nordic Council on Monday, declaring it “the only sensible measure” as unrest grows in Mora…  
_

_Reports are emerging of the Cleansers being deployed against infected citizens in Skutskär…  
_

_After two days missing the Dalahästen train is feared lost. Swedish authorities are telling the families of the passengers and crew to “prepare for the worst”…  
_

_Finland enacts martial law as food riots increase…_

_  
_

“Volcanoes! Pah!” his granddad spat across the table, showering Reynir with oats and spittle. In his 84 years the old man never had seemed to master the art of not talking with his mouth full. “Nonsense, that’s what that is,” he continued, jabbing a gnarled finger at the paper while Reynir wiped half-chewed porridge off his sleeve. “I’ve seen volcanoes! I saw Öræfajökull blow back in 37, and did that end the world? Of course not! And this, this _nonsense_ about a volcano seven times the size of Bornholm? Impossible! How do they even know it’s there, eh? They’re all saying it’s way out there in the Silent World, so of course they can’t go and check on it. So how do they _know_ , hmm?” He sat back with satisfaction, his chair creaking under him. 

“But, the ash…” Reynir started. 

“Oh the _ash_!” his granddad chortled, cutting him off. “The ash! Yes, all that ash floating around up the sky, where no-one can see it! Tell me, Reynir, how do you suppose they know that’s there either? Are you going to suggest that geologists can _fly_ , next?” 

Reynir tried to get a word in before the old man went off on one of his rants again, but he was too late. 

“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” he continued. “It’s Fimbulwinter.” 

There was a chorus of groans around the table. “Dad, please, not this again...” Reynir’s mother muttered. 

“It _is_! Three years of winter, just like it says in the Edda. Three years of famine, and then the final battle of the gods. _You_ should know,” he said, jabbing his finger at Reynir again. “I thought they were supposed to give you a proper education in that Seiður academy down in Reykjavik. Don’t they teach the Edda at all these days?” 

“I wouldn’t know,” Reynir shot back with the tiniest trace of bitterness in his voice. “I was forced to take the short course there, after all. _And_ it’s been two years since I left.” 

“Oh, sweetie, don’t start,” his mother chided. “We needed your help on the farm! With the world the way it is, we can’t have you gallivanting off all the time. What if something terrible happened?” She leaned across the table and gripped his arm like she was worried he might disappear if she didn’t. “We almost lost you once,” she said, her eyes full of concern. “We’re _not_ letting that happen again.” 

Reynir scowled, but didn’t meet her eyes. This was an argument they’d been having on and off for the past six years, ever since the quarantine ship _ICGV Iðunn_ had finally docked in Reykjavik and the six ‘Heroes of Copenhagen’ had walked down the gangplank to cheering crowds and popping flashbulbs. His parents had let him enrol in the academy after his talents had been made clear to them, but only on the condition that he come home every summer to help them tend the family flocks during those important months. And after the disastrous winter of 95 – Reynir remembered when everyone was calling it ‘freak weather’ and ‘once-a-century’ and no-one knew the words ‘Yellowstone’or ‘supervolcano’ – they had insisted that he return home to work full-time instead of taking an apprenticeship with a company of Norwegian military mages like he had hoped. 

Although he knew they had been acting in his best interests – and they had genuinely needed his help in the farm, despite his suspicions it had been a ruse – he had never quite been able to forgive them for scuppering his hopes of becoming a mage just as a lifetime of adventure seemed to be opening up before him. But Reynir had been brought up from a young age to believe that family came before everything, because out in the rural wilds of Iceland what else was there? And so he had stayed behind. 

He looked back down to the newspaper by his side as his mother released her grip, patted his forearm gently and turned to his father. For a few minutes the only sounds were the low chatter of their voices and the faint rustle of Reynir turning the pages. Then all of a sudden he lifted his head and looked in confusion up at the rafters of their kitchen. “Can you hear that?” he asked.

 “Huh? No…” his mother frowned, glancing round at him. 

“ _What?_ ” his granddad bellowed irritably, letting loose another spray of porridge. 

It was a sound Reynir hadn’t heard for years – the odd growling whine of a diesel-electric engine, that very particular noise old world gearboxes made when they were spun by new world batteries. The last time he had heard it, it had been coming from the beaten-up APC he’d spent that winter in Copenhagen living out of. But this noise was different somehow, louder, more regular. Instead of the grumble and clatter of the tank’s treads, it was overlaid instead with an odd rhythmical thumping noise. 

He got up and made his way over to the kitchen window, expecting to see some high-tech piece of farming equipment go rumbling down the road that ran in front of their farmhouse. Some tractor or plough of some kind, perhaps, requisitioned by the government from one of the neighbouring farms and speeding off to the great greenhouse complexes outside Hellisheiði and Nesjavellir – or what was left of them after the storms of 96. He peered through the glass but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The noise was definitely getting louder. 

“What on earth _is_ that?” his father asked, looking around. 

The noise grew and was joined by a high-pitched rattle. Reynir took a step back in surprise. The glass in the windowpanes was vibrating slightly. 

“Is it… is there an eruption happening?” his mother wondered, her expression turning fearful. On the table their bowls and spoons were starting to jump and tremble on the oak surface. Reynir’s father grabbed a plate just before it slithered off the edge and onto the floor. His granddad staggered to his feet and shouted something about Ragnarok. Reynir barely heard him. The whine had become a piercing shriek and it was almost impossible to make out any sounds over it. Mind racing, he looked back out of the window, _up_ this time at the miserable grey clouds, according to some strange premonitory instinct he had still not learned how to master. 

With a mechanical snarl the strangest-looking machine Reynir had ever seen soared over the farmhouse’s rooftop. It looked like a cross between a dragonfly and an iron fish, bulging glass windscreens and a long tail emerging from opposite ends of a sleek body that had been painted alternating stripes of red, white and blue. It hung beneath a blurry circle, connected by a whirring trunk of gears and metal. Reynir could just make out the meaningless word ‘TF-LÍF’ and the much more familiar words ‘Icelandic Coast Guard’ emblazoned along its white flank, along with the Icelandic flag. He jumped back from the window with a startled shout, his mind recoiling at the sight of the impossible contraption before him. 

The machine described a lazy arc through the sky above the farm and stopped at the far end of the dirt road that ran from the main road to their front door. As it travelled it kicked up huge quantities of snow from the ground beneath it, sending it everywhere in a blinding white-grey spray that slammed into the buildings underneath. The farmhouse walls and front door shuddered under the impacts. Small slots in the vehicle’s underbelly folded open and wheels, comically small compared to the thing’s bulk, popped out. Almost daintily the machine dropped from the sky and landed neatly next to the road. 

Behind him, Reynir dimly registered his parents and grandfather shouting in confusion, jostling and pushing behind him to try and get a look out of the window at this bizarre machine. He ignored them. He stared at the machine in a mixture of confusion and a strange, desperate hope – that even if his parents had tried to keep him from a life of adventure, then maybe, just maybe a life of adventure had in some way come looking for him. 

A door on the side of the vehicle slid open. Two figures clambered out and started to make their way up the snow-choked path towards the farmhouse. One was a man with dark blond hair and clothes you could tell were expensive from fifty metres away, picking his way carefully through the slush like he thought it might be toxic. The other was a woman with flame-red hair, clad in a thick white uniform and with a rifle slung across her back. She paused to look in through the windows at the front of the machine – Reynir guessed she was talking to whoever was driving the strange thing – and then strode off to catch up with the man. It was a long, confident stride that Reynir recognised even after six long years. 

He was out of the door before the rest of his family could react, racing down the path to meet them, his braid streaming out behind him. The machine was still kicking up a lot of snow and dirt as the disc above it slowly span down and Reynir had to hold up a hand to protect his face from the worst of it. 

He met the pair of them halfway down the road. The man, who he dimly recognised from when they had gotten back from Copenhagen years ago, beamed at him and stuck out a leather-gloved hand. “Mr Árnason? Councillor Torbjörn Västerström. It’s a pleasure to meet you agai-” And that was as far as he got before Reynir sprinted right past him and nearly tackled the woman to the ground in a massive bear hug. She braced herself for the impact and caught him neatly in a way that suggested she was worryingly used to dealing with being charged by things. 

“Good to see you again, kid,” Sigrun Eide grinned, as Reynir started babbling a thousand different questions at once.


End file.
